Over 72000 People In Ashanti Region Living With HIV Ghana AIDS Commission Cautions Public

According to the Ghana Aids Commission 2022 report, there are 72,429 persons living with HIV in the Ashanti Region.

Only over 26,000 of those in question are presently receiving antiretroviral therapy at medical institutions; the remaining 46,421 cannot be accounted for in terms of antiretroviral uptake.

These individuals are either unaware of their status or have stopped receiving ARV medication.

Dennis Bandoh, the deputy Ashanti regional focal person for HIV/AIDS, revealed that by the end of the third quarter of 2023, the region had registered 4,618 new cases, a 2.1 percent rise over the same period the previous year.

In an interview with the GNA, he stated that 3,937 out of 51,940 persons screened under the HIV testing services category tested positive, and 62,835 pregnant women had tested positive under the Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission category, with 681 of them.

He claims that some men have the opinion that if their partners or spouses who are pregnant test negative, the results imply that the males are negative as well.
Greater Accra led the list of regional HIV estimations in the report with 85,403, followed by Ashanti Region with 72,429 and Eastern Region with 46,339.9,359 people died from AIDS-related causes, 4,353 of them were men and 5,006 of whom were women.

16,574 new HIV infections were reported in the nation; 5,647 of those infections were in males and 10,927 were in females. Of those, 2,868 were in the 0ndash;14 age range and 13,706 were in the 15+ age group.

The HIV epidemic persisted as a problem, disproportionately affecting vulnerable populations and certain locations.